Saipa unveils grand plans

TEHRAN // Iranian automaker, Saipa, has plans to expand into Middle East, African and South American countries with the Miniator, a 1.5L, four-cylinder sedan car. Nematollah Poustindouz, Saipa's managing director, says that Algeria, Libya, Venezuela, Egypt, and Nigeria will be the main target markets for Saipa cars, especially the Miniator, in 2010. The Miniator has been fully designed and engineered in Iran and constructed with domestically built components. It was launched in November 2008, has a combined fuel economy of 7L/100km and puts out 80hp. Fifteen-thousand were produced last year. Poustindouz also says that Syria and Iraq continue to be growth markets for the cars, which are built in the Iranian city of Kashan. "Saipa plans to deliver 18,000 cars to its 32 representatives in Syria and manufacture some 35,000 cars in Iraq in the next Iranian calendar year," he says.